Dose of discipline can help cure state’s budgetary woes

MANAGING ROLE: Peter M. Marino was serving as fiscal adviser to the state Senate before being named by Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee to head the newly established R.I. Office of Management and Budget. / COURTESY OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
MANAGING ROLE: Peter M. Marino was serving as fiscal adviser to the state Senate before being named by Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee to head the newly established R.I. Office of Management and Budget. / COURTESY OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

After merging state financial offices into a single Office of Management and Budget this year, Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee needed someone to lead the new entity and turned to the General Assembly, where many of his fiscal proposals have died. In then-Senate Fiscal Adviser Peter M. Marino, he found someone with experience shaping the state budget and critiquing it with the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. In addition to the traditional roles of the offices it combined, the new OMB will do more data analysis, a common refrain in suggestions for improving the Rhode Island economic climate. Five months after taking the job, Marino is now working on the first state budget proposal crafted under the new structure, one that, as always, promises tough decisions.

PBN: What offices were combined into the Office of Management and Budget and what is the new entity’s purpose?
MARINO: There were four offices combined: the State Budget Office, Office of Performance Management, Office of Regulatory Reform and Office of Grant Management. The responsibilities of the OMB are to enhance the state’s public finance and budget process, monitor departments and agencies’ overall performance, maximize use of federal grant funds and establish a clear, predictable and reliable regulatory system. Overall, the mission is to be the source for credible and accurate financial-management information.

PBN: Are there more employees in the merged office or fewer?
MARINO: In all there are about 30 employees. At the moment I am the only additional employee. However, we are recruiting to resource some work in the regulatory-reform office, because that is one of the key objectives the governor is trying to get moved and done well.

PBN: What is different with the new OMB structure? MARINO: The first objective of the OMB is to think strategically and more long term than has been the practice for some time. To begin looking at the horizon and trying to figure out which strategies we can implement to try to attack long-term operating deficits that are projected over the next five years. So the philosophy is to anticipate those issues and start addressing them before they become a crisis. Specifically on the budget, the governor has made it clear to me he wanted to inject a higher level of overall fiscal discipline, not only in the development of the budget but the management of the budget. He wanted to make sure agencies are held accountable for their expenditures.

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PBN: How much discretion do you have to explore different areas of the budget or bureaucracy that could be streamlined?
MARINO: It is like a multitiered process. We have a process where all departments and agencies submit budgets based on instructions we develop. Those instructions are anchored in the fact that we need to close operating deficits. And so they are all required to do these constrained budget submissions to develop options for the governor so he can decide which make the most sense and which will have the greatest impact. In a broader sense, because of the nature of the other offices we have in the OMB, it gives us an opportunity through performance management and grant management to look at practices throughout the state.

PBN: So far, any areas you’ve started taking a look at yet to find efficiencies?
MARINO: An example of some of the work we have been doing is looking at some of the organizational issues and some of the potential efficiencies across the different transportation agencies in the state. Soon we will be releasing a report that outlines some of that analysis and outlines a game plan to begin tackling some of those issues.

PBN: Another function the governor wanted to merge in the OMB was the Bureau of Audits, but the General Assembly didn’t agree. Do you wish you controlled that audit function?
MARINO: The Bureau of Audits has a key role when we are evaluating what is going on across the state. It was determined not to fold it in the OMB. We work in concert with the Bureau of Audits and for the most part if has been something that has worked well.

PBN: How is the fiscal 2014 budget picture shaping up so far?
MARINO: The projected deficit for 2014 is about [$69.3 million, according to figures presented to the House Finance Committee]. … So that is something that needs to be tackled and addressed and the departments and agencies have been working hard to try to present the options for the governor to close that budget gap. Right now, given that we have had a number of very difficult budgets, those choices are getting that much more difficult.

PBN: Have all the departments presented a budget that cut 7 percent of expenditures?
MARINO: Most departments complied with what we call a constraint budget. Certainly the choices that are being presented, some are more viable than others. But to achieve those policy objectives, those choices are going to have to be vetted and prioritized.

PBN: How is being in the governor’s office different from being in the legislature?
MARINO: I think what I like about it is the building and developing of the budget starts on this side of the street, so you get additional insight as to some of the processes and barriers that are there to make sure things get implemented in the way that you envision them. •INTERVIEW
Peter M. Marino
Position: Director of R.I. Office of Management and Budget
Background: Marino started working in public finance right out of graduate school and got his first job in the Rhode Island state budget office under Gov. Bruce Sundlun in 1993. In 1995, he moved to the business-backed, fiscal-watchdog Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, where he worked until 2006. After a stint as a lobbyist with the RDW Group in Providence, he returned to state government in 2008 when he was hired by the Senate.
Education: Bachelor’s in public administration and political science from James Madison University, 1991; master’s in public administration from Syracuse University, 1993
First job: Security guard for a neighborhood park
Residence: Coventry
Age: 44

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